


Acclimation

by themillersson



Category: Glee
Genre: Domestic, Family, Gen, Laundry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-02
Updated: 2012-07-02
Packaged: 2017-11-09 01:16:14
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/449634
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themillersson/pseuds/themillersson
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Burt learns to navigate skirmishes in the Hummel-Hudson laundry wars. (Suggested alternate title: "KEEP CALM and DO LAUNDRY." Spoilers up to Furt.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Acclimation

Seventeen years of living with Kurt had taught Burt that the laundry room was a dangerous place. Messing with the natural order of things in that room never led anywhere pleasant, so he’d acclimated over the years – he still did his own jeans and shirts if they were piling up (or if he’d caught Kurt eyeing an item of clothing with displeasure – there was no way that many clothes could “get eaten by the dryer” by accident when it never happened to things Kurt approved of), but otherwise, he steered clear.  
  
Somehow, though, in the endless sober conversations with Carole over whether they were truly ready for living together, no matter how much they both wanted it, and in the later excitement of the wedding and moving into a new house, Burt realized that he’d forgotten to warn her of that.  
  
The first time it turned up as a problem, Burt was thankfully able to head it off before anything could happen. He entered the utility room in search of the cleaning supplies he needed – the contractors had done a good job, mostly, but there had been a weird funky smell in the downstairs bathroom ever since they re-tiled it. He nearly bypassed Kurt with little more than a nod on his way to the closet, but the stiffness in his son’s stance made him pause.  
  
“Kurt?” he said cautiously.  
  
Kurt was looking up at the clothes hung above the dryer with a weird, tight expression, one that Burt hadn’t seen since the previous spring. His voice was deceptively absent when he asked, “Did Carole do the laundry?”  
  
Burt glanced up at the shirts and jackets Kurt was staring at. He couldn’t spot any difference in them, but then again, what did he know? “Yeah, I think so.” He abandoned his path to the closet and went to stand next to Kurt. “Something wrong?”  
  
Kurt took a deep breath and nodded stiffly. “She didn’t use the mesh bag and must have washed my green sweater with the heavier fabrics. It looks crushed. And she hung it on a hanger instead of flat.” His jaw tightened. “I was going to _wear_ that this weekend.”  
  
Burt sighed. At least he’d run into Kurt before Carole did. He didn’t really get Kurt’s compulsion to plan outfits in advance or why he placed so much weight on it, but he did know that it was important to his son – probably especially now that he had to wear a uniform five days of the week. “You’ve got time to plan around it, then,” he tried, shrugging. Understanding that something outwardly minor felt like a big deal to Kurt was one thing, but agreeing out loud would just make it sound like Burt was giving permission for Kurt to work himself into a snit. It had taken him a few years to figure out a balance, but it seemed to work. “Can you fix it?”  
  
“Of course I can fix it.” Kurt shot him a disgruntled look, but Burt took it in stride. “But I’ll need two days, our old towels, and the card table, and it will never be quite the same as before it got mangled.” He had crossed his arms and his shoulders were hunching a little.  
  
Burt awkwardly rested a hand on Kurt’s shoulder, feeling it relax minutely at the touch. “Look, I’ll talk to her about letting you do your own stuff, and we’ll have a talk about chores all together later, okay?” He frowned. “And don’t you repeat any of that to her, she was trying to help. You don’t insult people for that.” He felt a little like he was picking his way through the dark, but tried to keep his voice stern anyway. Even if everything still felt off-balance and new with four people trying to mash their lives together, Burt could at least keep his half of the family from making it harder. After a minute, Kurt reluctantly nodded, so Burt squeezed his shoulder and headed for the supply closet again.  
  
Things mostly worked out that evening – Carole felt terrible about the sweater and Kurt cheered up a little after she let him explain the process for repairing damaged knits – and Burt let himself hope it would be the end of it.  
  
A week later, he cursed himself for being an optimist.  
  
“Ngh.” Carole made an indistinct noise as she collapsed onto the couch, eyes already closed. There was a sound from the other room that could only be Finn thundering up the stairs and Burt couldn’t help smiling like an idiot as he looked over at his _wife_. “If I ever agree to drive Rachel and Quinn both back from school again, shoot me.”  
  
Burt chuckled. “What, and deprive you of getting to be smug about not dating anymore? Not a chance.”  
  
She rolled her head to the side, contact with the back of the couch making her hair frizz, and opened her eyes to smile back at him. “Oh please, I was never that bad, even at my worst.”  
  
“And that’s one of the many reasons I love you,” Burt admitted.  
  
Carole grinned, and Burt was reminded again that he was the luckiest man he knew. After a contented second of just looking their fill at each other, Carole’s smile faded a little. “Burt,” she said carefully, “Kurt’s been washing all the dirty clothes this week.”  
  
Burt nodded, his forehead furrowing as he tried to work out where the tension in her voice was coming from. “He does that sometimes, when he’s stressed. He’s still settling at Dalton.”  
  
“I know. And trust me, I wish Finn had more productive stress habits, but…” Carole’s lips pressed together, and it looked like there was a whole lot she wasn’t saying. “Don’t you think it’s a little – much?”  
  
“Probably.” Burt shifted uncomfortably in his chair. Honestly, he’d prefer for Kurt to spend more of that nervous energy on his homework, but it was awfully hard to tell Kurt ‘no’ on anything with the memory of him looking defeated, expecting to go back to school with a death threat over his head, still fresh in his mind. Besides, if the chores were getting done, he wasn’t positive where the problem was.  
  
“It’s just-” Carole heaved a sigh. “I know what it’s like – I stress-baked like a madwoman when Finn was younger – but it’s a little odd not to have that… ritual every week now. It’s almost like he doesn’t trust me to do it.” Burt wanted to protest, but she waved a hand vaguely. “Maybe he doesn’t mean anything by it,” she said, sounding as if she was trying to reassure herself, though Burt had to squirm a little because, if he honestly thought about it, he was as awkwardly uncertain as she was, “but for Christ’s sake,” she exploded, “I’ve been doing the laundry since I was younger than him, I am perfectly capable.”  
  
Burt grimaced. He saw the same frustration and faint hurt reflected in her eyes that he’d felt himself sometimes, springing up when Finn would look surprised for a second at Burt asking him to do something, or when he’d leave a room in search of Carole to ask permission to go someplace. “I know. Trust me, I know.” He scrubbed a hand over his face. “You know how amazing you are for managing so much on your own, with Finn and everything. You’re the most capable person I know.”  
  
Her lips quirked up, but the insulted look was still there.  
  
Burt hesitated. “If you want to do it… Do you want me to talk with Kurt? I can remind him what we agreed last week, that he’d let you handle all the stuff that’s not his.”  
  
Carole started to nod, but paused. “No,” she said after a second. “I think… I should take care of this, shouldn’t I?” Burt raised his eyebrows in question, and she gave a little wry smile. “I’m his mom now, right?” She still sounded like she was trying the word on for size, though her tone was firm and it gave Burt an automatic glow of warmth to think that this woman was choosing to be his wife, his family. “I’ll talk to him about it this evening.”  
  
Burt smiled slowly and was about to say something, he wasn’t sure what, except that it was going to be mushy and awkward and probably make Carole laugh, but a sound like a herd of cattle on hardwood interrupted him. He sighed deeply. “Sounds like it’s my turn to catch Finn before he can clean out the fridge.” He tried not to sound like he was hovering when he added, “We can talk later if about it, if you want.”  
  
The lines around Carole’s eyes crinkled deeper when she smiled. “I’ll work it out.”  
  
Burt heaved himself out of his chair and went to give her a belated ‘hello’ kiss before heading toward the kitchen. “Just… be careful,” he warned her one last time, feeling a little uncertain. “I think it’s a pretty personal thing, for him.”  
  
“Burt,” she said in a gently pointed tone, though she was still smiling. “I know. And it is for _everyone_.”  
  
Burt nodded sheepishly and went to rescue their food supply.  
  
It seemed to go well; that evening was tense at times, but it sounded as if that had as much to do with Carole and Kurt both having had long days as anything else, and Carole laughed at Burt in bed that night for worrying. Kurt did spend a little less time washing and folding after that, though, and Carole thankfully seemed to find Kurt’s painfully unspontaneous compliments to her domestic abilities over the next few days to be more amusing than potentially offensive. Personally, Burt was more entertained by Finn’s increasingly suspicious looks at his stepbrother.  
  
Burt stayed on the lookout for more issues after that, though. He wasn’t eager to have to witness any disputes, but the reality of combining two households was obviously a little more difficult than they’d anticipated. Besides, it had to work this time. Burt was uncomfortably unsure that he could handle it if it didn’t.  
  
Of all the worst-case domestic scenarios he’d expected, though, finding Carole standing outside Finn’s closed door a half hour before their regular bedtime with a pained, conflicted look on her face wasn’t exactly one of them.  
  
He looked at the door, then back at her, but she shook her head when he opened his mouth to ask. She beckoned him closer, and when he was near enough, she spoke in a weary whisper. “They’re fighting. Laundry again.”  
  
Sure enough, when Burt strained his ears, he could hear Finn’s hushed accusations interspersed with sharp rejoinders from Kurt, and he frowned and reached for the doorknob.  
  
Carole caught his hand, though, squeezing lightly and absently running her fingertips over his calluses as if in comfort. “Don’t,” she said, sounding resigned. “They need to work this out themselves.”  
  
Burt didn’t lower his hand and kept staring at the door. “What’s going on?”  
  
Carole gave him a sharp look, and there was a tense, wary second where Burt knew they were remembering the same thing. “All I can tell,” she whispered anyway, “is that Kurt washed Finn’s things and it somehow went downhill from there.” When Burt blinked, she shrugged helplessly. “I really don’t know. Something about scented detergent.”  
  
Burt relaxed a little, but although hated himself a little when it came out of his mouth, he couldn’t stop himself from asking, “And it isn’t…”  
  
“No,” Carole said, firmly and maybe a little louder than was safe. The noise from Finn’s room didn’t pause, though, and Burt stood firm despite the wash of guilt from the look she gave him. “I thought we were past that.”  
  
“Can you really blame me?” Burt grumbled, not quite meeting her eyes. Her silence was enough of an answer, and Burt sighed heavily. “I know. I _do_ know. But… the fear’s still there, you know? It’s gonna be there for a while, even if it shouldn’t.” He looked up at her pleadingly.  
  
Carole frowned, looking sympathetic but stern. “He’s your son now. You heard him at the wedding, you need to trust him.”  
  
The words hit him with a jolt of guilt and Burt started to nod, but there was a burst of noise from within the room, a deeply aggrieved “…dump me if my dick smells like lavender!” and the tension shattered.  
  
Burt felt his face freeze into a horrified rictus, and Carole had to clutch the wall and cover her mouth to stifle her shocked giggles. “I think we can leave them to it,” Burt said hastily, and high-tailed it down the stairs, Carole following as she tried to contain her snickers. He and Carole would talk about their worries later and leave Kurt and Finn to handle their own damn laundry issues. Brothers fought all the time, right? Besides, somehow, Burt suspected there would be enough of these skirmishes in the future - he’d let the rest of the family acclimate on their own time.


End file.
